French bank creates cyber security app

The French banking giant Société Générale have launched their new Oppens start-up project which was born out of its own intrapreneurship program. The project has developed an online platform designed to support SMEs with their IT security. Relying on external partners and the bank’s expertise, Oppens raised € 1 million in funding.

Société Générale believe that this project represents one of their greatest achievements in the field of ​​open banking. The platform has been designed to offer its customers services outside of the bank's financial products with Société Générale’s in-house start-up, Oppens, providing its customers with know-how that has been developed and used for the establishment's own activity.

Today, the start-up has 700 people specially dedicated to ensuring Société Générale's cybersecurity. This strategy is likely to be similar to that developed by Amazon Web Service, which is a cloud computing activity, with computing capacities developed for internal uses before its commercialization.

According to David Prache's explanations, SMEs are the weak point in cybersecurity as better protected, large groups are currently being attacked through their suppliers who are in most cases SMEs.

Oppens is presented as a cybersecurity coach which offers companies a 3-step approach:

Assessing their level of vulnerability via online self-diagnosis,
Establishing their priorities from a dashboard,
Supporting companies by recommending products suited to their needs.

Openens' objective is to give everyone access to cybersecurity by working on the development of simple offers aimed exclusively at SMEs. An initial investment of one million euros has been received by the start-up from Société Générale, which hopes to register 15,000 connections on the platform by the end of the year.